Duke Nukem Forever Has A Spank Button

Duke Nukem Forever wants to push your buttons. Take the game’s “Capture the Babe” multiplayer mode, which ditches the traditional flag as object of desire for a woman, one who will “sometimes freak out” and need a gentle “reassuring slap”.

That’s according to the latest issue of OXM, which describes Duke Nukem Forever’s four multiplayer modes that feel ripped from the ’90s. They’re variations on deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and king of the hill modes, only with Duke-ified names – “Team Dukematch,” for example – and that aforementioned babe smacking.

The issue calls Capture the Babe mode “pretty much what you’d expect from a CTF-style mode with one small touch: the Babe will sometimes freak out while you’re carrying her […]at which point you have to hit a button to gently give her a reassuring slap,” but assures readers “it’s more goofy than offensive.”

The rest of DNF’s multiplayer, supporting up to 8 players at once, seems full of familiar Dukeisms, like the ability to grow tall or shrink, wear jetpacks and take steroids while fighting other players who also look like Duke Nukem.

Honestly, I'm just loving that they aren't taking anything serious about this except being serious about not taking it seriously. There's too many 'srs' shooters and the like out there and the only ones that aren't serious are ones like Bulletstorm where they aren't serious in the 'extreme violence' way.

If it were to be considered entirely on it's own, then it wouldn't really be an issue. Unfortunately there seems to be an emerging trend of gamers as not just socially awkward, but supportive of the continued objectification of women in games. It's become an all too common theme in games as a whole.

This is the most mainstream game to take it so far though. It's reasonable to consider that if this game is a success, we'll see more of the same in other games. And that then becomes ingrained in our culture. As a long time gamer, that's something I truly do not wish to see.

To qualify, yes I get the joke. Unfortunately not everyone else does. And gamers are at a point where we are creating political parties to further the cause of gaming. This does not do us any favours.

I like the game and want to play it and in no way consider myself a mysoginist. The game is pretty demeaning to women but that doesn't mean the players necessarily are misogynistic, I mean there are countless other types of media that are much more demeaning.

I know as gamers we have a bad reputation, and this does nothing to help it, but I'm not going to start changing what I play just because some people don't approve.

Jeremy Hore wasn't defending women, he was passing judgement and generalising by saying that all people who play this game must be misogynistic. Those kind of generalisations are prejudices like racism and sexism. Which is actually kind of ironic.

Thank you for simplifying my comment into a sound grab that doesnt actually reflect what I was saying at all.

I was saying that this particular part of this game has the capability of perpetuating a growing stereotype of gamers as misogynists. I know that most gamers arent, but unfortunately there is a growing perception that we are, and this 'feature' certainly doesnt help matters.

Do you even know what Misogyny means? Misogyny is a hatred towards women, Everything Duke isnt and if you know the plot to DNF and Duke 3D is to save earths women, why would he do it if he hated women?

Either get a sense of humor or go back to call of duty with all other gamers who take themselves to seriously.

I have a sense of humour. However I dont think that a game should reward a player for physically correcting a woman for behaving in a manner that they dont agree with. Similar to how you would treat a dog who is misbehaving.

I understand that Duke is supposed to be tongue in cheek. But I believe this is taking things a bit too far. Having discussed this with a number of women in the industry, as well as those outside it, not one has been anything less than appalled.